


Dancing in the Dark

by Sootgremlins



Category: Guns N' Roses, Hard Rock RPF, Music RPF
Genre: Child Abuse, Growing Up Together, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Indiana Boys, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 08:23:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19247443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sootgremlins/pseuds/Sootgremlins
Summary: William Bailey dies somewhere between Indiana and L.A. so Axl Rose can chase a boy and a dream.(or, Axl and Izzy before they make it out of a little town that they wanted to forget)





	Dancing in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> okay, so here we go!! as a general note, in later chapters, there may be mentions/descriptions of abuse as well as reference to internalized homophobia- so please do not read those chapters (i will put specific warnings as they come up) if you're not comfortable with reading these topics 
> 
> (also, as always, sorry for grammar mistakes/errors) 
> 
> enjoy <3

It’s still spring, but the air is hot enough that it’s obvious to all that summer is drawing near. The doors to the church open and families spill back out onto the cracked cement, children antsy and the adults glad to be back in the fresh air. To the general onlooker, they might notice the little boy with red hair who darts out first, followed by a woman with a baby on her hip and bright lipstick on her lips, pressed into a thin line. 

There’s another little boy with shaggy brown hair and knees covered in scabs, crouched down and poking through the dirt off to the left next to the sidewalk. The woman doesn’t notice her child runs over to join him, clean Sunday-best-pants hitting the dirt and grass as soon as he gets the chance to be out of her sight. 

The brown haired boy picks something up and the redhead reaches out with an open palm, curious as to what has been discovered, meeting a frowning face looking back. They watch each other before the second boy opens his own hand and shows him an old and dusty looking metal bottle cap off of a soda. 

“William!” the mother is yelling, readjusting the baby at her side and glaring at where he’s kneeling in the dirt.

He shoots to his feet and he’s going to go running back, he really is because his mommy is calling him and she’s going to get upset, especially if daddy sees him too, but the boy is tugging on his sleeve and he looks back. He’s being offered the bottle cap, and the boy isn’t frowning anymore, but he’s waving it around like he’s waiting for him to take it. 

So he does.

He runs back to his mother, cap clutched in his hand as the world depends on it. His mother is scolding him about his pants, and his sister takes the opportunity to break down into tears. She’s probably just as tired of her itchy dress as he is of his own clothes, but his mother forgets about the rest of her lecture and just grabs his wrist and pulls him back down the street. 

He still turns his head to wave at the brown haired boy crouched in the dirt. 

~~~

Axl watches the dog from the porch that night. He wishes he had grabbed the pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, but its back in his room and he doesn’t feel like getting up again. And anyway, he doesn’t need his step-father finding him with them in his hand (not that he would give a shit, but he would still use it as an excuse to blame him for stealing and therefore an excuse to slap him around). His hands rest uselessly in his lap, occasionally roaming to run over the warped wood of the deck. 

He wonders if the dog had just strayed away from someone's porch, or out of someone's front door when they weren't looking, but he can see that it hasn't eaten in a while, thin even underneath all the fur. There’s no collar, dirty brown fur with a long tale, looking like the average of all the dogs in town combined together to create it. 

He whistles, drumming his fingers on the wood next to him. The dog had been hanging around the past few days, looking for food up and down the street. It looks back at him, tail wagging from where it's hanging low to the ground. He waits a moment before he whistles again, patting his lap this time. The dog walks toward him halfway before stopping, and Axl thinks that if it’s any smart it would just stay away, or at least be somehow be able to realize its picked the most fucked up house in the neighborhood to hang out at looking for food. Then again, he really does hope that it decides to walk the rest of the way over to him, even if its a little selfish on his part. 

He sighs and glances around the yard, out onto the pavement still empty of cars. It had been a quiet enough day for him at least, the boring feeling over moving through the days with no real clear end in sight. It's still early enough in the day that it doesn't feel wasted yet, at least. Which leaves him with the options of going back inside, or seeing if Izzy wanted to go do something. 

Deciding on the second option, he stands up to go grab his bike, looking at the dog one last time before he nudges the kick-stand up with his foot and puts his feet on the pedals. This past summer it had begun felt like a loop of doing the same things over and over again, if not for any other reason than a lack of something new to do. 

By the time he gets to Izzy's house, the sun had reached the point in the day where it felt the hottest, slipping even into the shade through the tree branches. Izzy is already in the yard, walking from the backyard to the front door when he notices Axl.

"Hey," Axl yells, leaning onto the handlebars from where he's stopped. 

Izzy's head jerks in his direction, eyebrows shooting up at the sight of Axl, "Was wondering when your sorry ass was gonna show up today."

He flips him off, doing his best to not to smile back too much, "Like you have anything better to do."

Izzy shrugs, "Go down to the creek then?"

"Sure," he says, dragging out the end of the word as he watches Izzy walk to the open garage and drag his bike out. 

They don't talk on the way over, there's not much to say between them in a moment like this. The street gives way to a dirt path that winds down by a field before meeting the creek itself. They both step off their bikes, Izzy stretching before walking off toward one of the big trees that leaned out over the water slightly. 

 

Axl flops down on the grass on the edge of the bank, which still looks green compared to the yellowed grass the further you walked into town. Axl’s fingers run through it as he stretches his legs out closer to the water, not close enough to touch it or the smooth pebbles. Instead, he watches Izzy start to climb up the tree, arms reaching for the next branch and some part of Axl would like to laugh if he fell into the creek right now with his nice jeans still on. There's a blunt stuffed into his pocket and the lighter that remains seemingly ever-present, no matter where he is. Digging it out, he pauses for a moment before lighting it. Even this just feels like something he does for the sake of it anymore. 

He lifts the blunt to his lips, inhaling before he watches the smoke cloud the air in front of him, blurring the lines on the opposite bank before it drifts away in the wind and the world is brought back into a sharper focus. 

“Hey, Iz?” Axl calls, not bothering to look back up when he hears a small snapping sound and a string of curses. 

“M’yeah?” Izzy answers, and Axl takes another drag before he continues.

“Do you think your old lady would care if you got a dog?”

There’s another pauses as Izzy stretches a leg out to reach for footing below him, “Who’s fucking dog did you steal, man?”

Axl snorts, finally looking back up to catch sight of Izzy somewhere in the leaves, “Didn’t steal no one’s fucking dog, asshat- and that’s not what I’m asking. Would she care much?”

“I mean we used to have a dog, I guess,” Izzy shrugs the best he can, blowing a piece of hair back out of his face from where it had fallen over his eye. Axl hums in response, another puff of smoke.

“But why?” Izzy asks, legs swinging down as he starts to climb back to the ground, his tank top riding up on his stomach before it falls back down when his boots make contact with the dirt, knees bending in a smooth enough recovery. Axl's eyes dart away from the strip of skin until Izzy tugs his shirt back down with one hand. Axl doesn’t feel exceptionally talkative, or maybe he just doesn't feel like explaining everything, so he doesn’t say anything. The sound of the water and the birds is the only thing he hears. 

“Wanna swim?” Axl finally asks, Izzy’s head twisting at the change of subject. It’s probably fine, the dog had already been living outside for fuck knows how long another night won’t kill it. He could just go put some food out by the tree that grows on the far side of the lawn. No one would really bother looking over there. 

"Yeah," Izzy answers, already stripping off his tank, throwing it in Axl’s general direction, not bothering to push the first question. Axl snorts, putting the blunt out in the grass and carefully taking off his own shirt and jeans and tossing them back onto the ground. If he’s looking at it from a purely objective point of view, Izzy has, for lack of a better description, grown into himself this past year. He looks less gangly and more filled out, a touch more put together than he had this time a year ago. Something that he notices only because it’s hard to miss, not because he was looking. 

There’s a splash by the time he gets socks off, Izzy wading into the water and letting out a half shrieking noise when the cold water goes up to his stomach, arms raised above the water line. He looks slightly betrayed when he realizes Axl hasn’t followed him yet like it was some kind of trick. But Axl shakes his head, bare feet across the rocky creek bed, water licking around his ankles before he walks further in. 

It is cold, but it feels like a fever breaking compared to the hot air and relentless sun. Izzy dips his head under the water, flipping his soaked hair back when he comes up again, and he’s deep enough that his boxers are wet too, and Axl can see him shiver.

Izzy takes the opportunity to splash water at him, droplets spraying across his chest and face and he spits, glaring back at him before sending his own wave back at him. At least Izzy has the common sense to know when he’s outmatched as he wades backward away from Axl, the current of the water making it hard for him to stand still, closer to the opposing bank at this point. 

“Motherfucker,” he growls, and Izzy is laughing again, almost losing his footing on the slick rocks under the water. 

The water does feel good, the trees moving slightly in the breeze around them. The rush of water drowns out other sounds. He does his best to chase Izzy, who ducks underneath the water where he knows he isn’t willing to go yet, until finally, Axl does dip under the water, eyes closed before he pops back up again shaking his head as the water sprays a nearby rock poking above the surface. They swim around, Axl hauling himself up onto a rock before Izzy is dragging him back in by his ankle and they’re splashing around like they’re drowning. 

He gives up on catching Izzy after a while, eventually leaving the water in favor of the sun, and Izzy soon follows him, freezing cold and soaking wet with a lopsided smile. 

He watches as he rings out his hair, flipping the droplets off his fingers into the grass. Flopping down next to him, Izzy sighs and leans back on his elbows. He closes his eyes for a minute, contemplating a short nap. He doesn't, not really feeling like sleep, but when he opens his eyes again his skin feels warm again. The sun drying them off, hair still laying damp around their shoulders and brushed back over ears. Izzy’s looks a shade darker, even from where the sun had been lightening it up to the entire summer. It looks good on him, separates him out from the jocks and the nerds, the not so thin social lines of the school putting him in a whole nother league, and he didn’t even know it yet. It makes Axl feel like an outsider, Izzy owns what he says with ease like he knows he’s going to get what he wants, and Axl? Axl feels like he’s bull-shited his way through every aspect of his life since he could open his mouth and talk back.

If Izzy notices him staring, he doesn’t say anything, all too content to arch his back and stretch, the now late afternoon sun soaking into his skin and making him look like some forest spirit out of a kids book Axl used to have in his room when he was a kid. 

Izzy lays back, hands folded over his chest as he closes his eyes. He didn’t take off his necklace that never seems to leave his neck, an old bottle cap with a hole where a plain looking chain threads through it. Axl had made it for him, for Izzy’s fourteenth birthday, what felt like years ago, the same bottle cap that Izzy had given him long before he had decided to leave the name Jeff, and when they were still too young to worry about nothing more than what game they wanted to play at recess.

Some odd sense of pride had made Axl pay for the chain when he had made it like, he really wanted to prove that he could do this the right way and on his own. He’d given it to Izzy folded in an old newspaper, and he would never forget the beaming smile that Izzy had given to him, immediately clasping it around his neck and catching Axl by surprise with a hug that had left him feeling dizzy after. 

Axl would never be able to say it, but this is what he wants in some other universe. To somehow have Izzy and spend time with him, that he wants to say that they could have a little house in a different state far away from here where they don’t know anyone. That he wants to have a dog that they can both take care of and a whole shelf of their favorite records, how much he wants to sing with Izzy when they’re alone and maybe even dance with him, take him to a special place they could call their own, have their own room that they share together and that they can decorate however the fuck they want- just because they can. It would never have to be anything more than that, simply existing together. 

He doesn’t say any of that though, just leans over until he could reach out and run his fingers over Izzy’s skin and feel how warm and alive he is, not the cold empty of everyone else he knows. Izzy seems to glow for him. 

He lets his finger trail along the length of his arm until he’s touching the back of his hand before he stops. Izzy still doesn’t open his eyes, the only reaction he gets is the small twitch of his arm. And he is just as warm as he looks, the fine hairs on his arm rising in goosebumps under his touch like they’ve just gotten out of the water and they’re still shivering. 

Axl forces himself to take his hand away, but Izzy’s hand shoots out and grabs it back, palms touching and Axl hopes he isn’t as clammy as he thinks they are, Izzy’s seem so smooth and warm like everything about him.

“The dog, that you asked about?” Izzy starts, “I think it would be fine. Backyards fenced in n’ all that.”

“Yeah?” Axl says, still trying to not think too much about the fact that Izzy is still holding his hand at the moment. He can stretch his thoughts enough that it’s all another thing friends might do, it’s not like anyone can see them right now. 

Izzy nods, his hair fanned out in the grass, “But for real, who’s fucking dog is it?”

“It's a stray,” Axl says, and the fingers on his free hand are starting to feel twitchy like he needs something else to hold on to.

Izzy’s right eye cracks open, “You’re not fucking with me?”

Axl shakes his head, and Izzy is smiling back at him when he laughs, “Why would I be fucking with you?”

“Dunno,” Izzy sighs, before closing both eyes again.

**Author's Note:**

> if you want to, it means so much to me if you could leave a comment as well, not only does it help me improve, but it especially lets me know if you want me to continue on since you like it!! <33


End file.
